I have not earned an income from work since September 2019. I moved out to "Go-Fuckyourself-Stan" since I was unable to emigrate to Ireland after selling and giving away most of my stuff that held no personal value other than an anchor holding me to a city I no longer felt was my home. This process involved selling about 30K worth of astronomy gear. The new homestead is 80 acres, well 160. I had to buy the second lot and hire an atourney to get an easement and access road built. With the pandemic and the shit show that is labour in the rural parts of the USA, the road will get graded and graveled sometime in 2030. My hope is all these cunts buying land up here will realize that living in the reddest of the red states home to naught but protestant traitors will make then leave in a few years. I'm just glad that I was able to get all my living stuff done before the world went to full shit in Q4 2020. The one thing I do have here is damn near perfect skies. Last year, not counting the land purchase and moving a single wide mobile home to the land, I lived on less than 30K including taxes and fees , gas, food etc. I took a look at finances, and thanks to some amazing timing I nearly doubled my net worth due to the pandemic dip and recovery rally. So it is time to relearn to love a hobby again.

I made a call and got hold of a guy I have done business with to the tune of over six figures including referrals over the last 20 or so years. He asked what I have been up to, and told him. I told him I burned all my online presence, that the old job was treating me worse than shite, that I removed myself from astronomy education and noped out to the mountains. My guy then spent an hour calling me every name in the book, insulting everything about me, and telling me that he is so disappointed that I bailed out he will never sell me anything again. He then hung up on me. There are maybe six people on this earth that can talk to me in such a manner... and have me sit and listen, none of whom are family.

A few days later he calls back, calmer and gives me conditions that I need to meet to stay a customer. He explained how the pandemic cratered the astronomy hobby and there is literally no gear worth owning for sale right now. But he was willing to shove me to the front of the line if I did a few things for him. The one demand that almost ended a multi-decade friendship was my guy demanding I get back online again. I asked why. He went silent for a good few minutes then gave me an answer I will not put in public. He made a convincing argument. So here I am, back on the sewer of human failure that is the internet. The internet was a mistake, not one that I think the human race can recover from fast enough to fix our larger institutional issues. When the shit really hits the fan, the French revolution is going to look like a minor disagreement followed by a night of drinking at the pub. I do not have internet at the homestead, I barely have phone service. I explained this, we had a good talk, and so here I am again. At least now that the solar is up I can type stuff on a laptop for the trips into town to see the doctor or brave a Costco. Not watching the fall of western civilization in real time one garbage twitter thread at a time has really helped my mental and physical well being. I've lost enough weight and can almost breathe again due to no allergies to the point that they now think they can drug me correctly and fix my health issues. I'll post once in a while when I can make it to town with time to spare to sit in the library or a coffee shop and get connected. Maybe.

I also realized that 2021 is the 10 year anniversary of Occupy Wall Street. I should sit down and write my angry fucking hate-rant on my experience there. I'm not-unconvinced that the US system of representative democracy died with insane panicked over-response by the people in power, but I hope I am wrong. Everyone complaining about police over-responses and use of force that did not raise your voice ten years ago? eat shit.